Remarks at Beijing International Airport

Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Beijing International Airport
Beijing, China
November 21, 2006

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: Hi. How are you?

QUESTION: How was your stay in China?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: It was too short. I just came up to Beijing. This is a follow up to my President's discussion with the Chinese President, also with Japanese Prime Minister Abe. I came up to talk with my Chinese counterpart about the preparations for the Six-Party Talks and to make sure that we agreed with how we would like to proceed. We had very good discussions on that. I'm going to go back now to Washington and report on those discussions and to have Thanksgiving dinner.

QUESTION: Any time to visit North Korea before…?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: No. I'm hopeful that we'll have some more consultation with some of the parties and we'll get to the Six-Party Talks. But I must say we want to make sure that these Six-Party Talks are very well planned and that we have a good outcome from this session.

QUESTION: Will it happen before the end of the year, do you think?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: I believe that we will have the Six-Party Talks probably in the middle of December, but what is important for us is that they be well planned, and that's why I came today. We had some very good discussions about this issue in Hanoi with the Japanese delegation led by Prime Minister Abe, but also with the Chinese and with the ROK and Russians. This is part of that process of really being very well prepared.

QUESTION:  Did you talk about BDA?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: We talked about a lot of different elements and, by the way, I found no confirmation of some of these press reports about changes in the BDA accounts. I cannot find any confirmation that any of those press reports are true.

QUESTION: Who did you meet today?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: I met with my counterpart, Mr. Wu Dawei. We had dinner together and met together today, so probably four or five hours. About four or five hours with a lot of discussion.

QUESTION: What did you talk mainly?

ASST. SECRETARY HILL: We talked about the Six-Party Talks and what we want to accomplish.

Thank you very much. I have a plane to catch, and you look very cold, so why don't you go indoors now? See you later. Bye.

Released on November 21, 2006